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Who's Who - Conrad von Hotzendorf

General Count Franz Conrad von
Hotzendorf (1852-1925) served as the Austrian Chief of Staff and Commander
in Chief from 1906 until 1917.

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A highly energetic man and
far-sighted in his approach to military reform, Conrad worked hard from 1906
to transform and modernise the Austrian army, championing such novelties as
signals intelligence and
aerial reconnaissance.

Politically however Conrad
was less astute. Supremely confident in the abilities of both himself
and his armies, Conrad regularly proposed so-called 'preventative' or
surprise wars directed against the supposed enemies of the Austro-Hungarian
empire, usually Italy and Serbia; the realities of war and its consequences
often escaped him, especially in the Balkans.

In 1911 Conrad's demand for
a war with Italy (during the Italo-Turkish War) resulted in his dismissal,
although he was recalled in December the following year and was in readiness
to again demand war against Serbia at the height of the
July Crisis of 1914,
this time prevailing with the support of Foreign Minister
Count Leopold von
Berchtold. Conrad himself had been a friend and associate of
murdered Archduke
Franz Ferdinand.

Although widely regarded at
the time as a notable strategist his reputation has not held up well over
time. Austria-Hungary's mobilisation in July 1914 was ill-managed and
the army far from in readiness on either the Serbian or Russian fronts.
This was by no means a minor fault and was largely responsible for the
army's initial string of woeful defeats at the hands of the Serbians.

Having at first despatched
his forces to the Balkans - banking upon slow Russian mobilisation - he was
obliged to hastily redirect forces to Galicia once he realised the Russians
were mobilising far quicker than expected; the result was logistical chaos
with troops stranded somewhere in between.

Similarly he underestimated
Serbian determination and preparedness, again compounding military failures
in 1914. Concerned mainly with the war against Italy, the Austrian
defence against the initially tremendously successful Brusilov Offensive of
June 1916 was pitifully weak;
Brusilov very
nearly succeeded in demolishing the Austrian army, and was responsible for
1.5 million Austrian casualties and prisoners (of which there were some
400,000).

Although Conrad claimed
credit for the Austro-German offensive of 1915, in reality the Austrians had
largely subordinated the command structure to their German allies.

Conrad's lack of success in
commanding his armies on both fronts effectively brought down the
Austro-Hungarian empire. With
Karl I's accession as Emperor of
Austria-Hungary on the death of
Franz-Josef in
November 1916, Conrad's grip on power began to slip.

The new emperor favoured a
negotiated peace with the
Entente Powers, in which he was very much at odds
with his Chief of Staff. Also keen to establish greater control over
his armed forces, Karl I dismissed Conrad in March 1917, choosing to replace
him with Arz von Straussenberg.

Accepting instead command
of the army in Italy, Conrad was deprived of this too following a succession
of defeats, and was recalled to Vienna. He retired shortly afterwards,
thereafter publishing his multi-volume memoirs (My Beginnings 1878-82
and My Service 1906-18).

Conrad von Hotzendorf died
in Mergentheim in Germany on 25 August 1925 at the age of 72.

Click here to hear Conrad von Hotzendorf announce one of his military
Orders of the Day in 1916 (MP3 284KB).

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Saturday, 22 August, 2009Michael Duffy

Both British and German fleets had around 45 submarines available at the time of the Battle of Jutland, but none were put to use.